The Book of the Penitence of Adam is a manuscript dealing with Kabbalistic traditions, all of which are embodied in the allegory it contains.
The manuscript is an account of how Cain and Abel slew each other and how Adam's inheritance therefore passed to his third son, Seth. [1] Seth was permitted to reach the gate of the Earthly Paradise without being attacked by the guardian angel with his flaming sword, and beheld the Trees of Life and Knowledge, which had joined to form a single tree, said to symbolise the harmony of science and religion in the Kabbalah. The guardian angel presented him with three seeds from this tree, which he was instructed to place in Adam's mouth when he died. From these grew the burning bush which God used to talk to Moses, who made his magic wand from part of it. This wand was placed in the Ark of the Covenant and was planted by King David on Mount Zion, where it grew into a triple tree which was cut down by Solomon to construct the pillars of Jachin and Boaz at the entrance to the Temple in Jerusalem. Another portion was inserted into the threshold of the great gate and permitted no unclean thing to enter the sanctuary. It was, however, removed by some wicked priests, weighted down by stones and thrown into the Temple reservoir, where it was hidden and guarded by an angel. During Christ's lifetime the reservoir was drained and the piece of wood found and used as a bridge across the brook of Kedron, over which Jesus passed after his arrest on the Mount of Olives. It was then made into the cross on which he was crucified.
The legend that the cross was ultimately made from the Tree of Knowledge was common in the Middle Ages and has similarities to the Holy Grail legend. It is also found in the 12th century Quete del St. Graal(Quest of the holy grail), attributed to Walter Map, who probably actually only edited it.
The original manuscript of the Book of the Penitence of Adam is now in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris.
The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such.
Joseph of Arimathea is a Biblical figure who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. Three of the four canonical Gospels identify him as a member of the Sanhedrin, while the Gospel of Matthew identifies him as a rich disciple of Jesus. The historical location of Arimathea is uncertain, although it has been identified with several towns. A number of stories about him developed during the Middle Ages.
Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. According to the Hebrew Bible, he had two brothers: Cain and Abel. According to Genesis 4:25, Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, and Eve believed that God had appointed him as a replacement for Abel.
In Judaism and Christianity, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one of two specific trees in the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2–3, along with the tree of life. Alternatively, some scholars have argued that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is just another name for the tree of life.
The True Cross is said to be the real cross that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on, according to Christian tradition.
The Testament of Adam is a Christian work of Old Testament pseudepigrapha that dates from the 2nd to 5th centuries AD in origin, perhaps composed within the Christian communities of Syria. It purports to relate the final words of Adam to his son Seth; Seth records the Testament and then buries the account in the legendary Cave of Treasures. Adam speaks of prayer and which parts of Creation praise God each hour of the day; he then prophesies both the coming of the Messiah and the Great Flood; and finally, a description of the celestial hierarchy of angels is given.
The Life of Adam and Eve, also known in its Greek version as the Apocalypse of Moses, is a Jewish apocryphal group of writings. It recounts the lives of Adam and Eve from after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths. It provides more detail about the Fall of Man, including Eve's version of the story. Satan explains that he rebelled when God commanded him to bow down to Adam. After Adam dies, he and all his descendants are promised a resurrection.
The Holy Chalice, also known as the Holy Grail, is in Christian tradition the vessel that Jesus used at the Last Supper to share his blood. The Synoptic Gospels refer to Jesus sharing a cup of wine with the Apostles, saying it was the covenant in his blood. The use of wine and chalice in the Eucharist in Christian churches is based on the Last Supper event. In the late 12th century, the author Robert de Boron associated the pre-existing story of the Holy Grail, a magical item from Arthurian literature, with the Holy Chalice. This association was continued in many subsequent Arthurian works, including the Lancelot-Grail (Vulgate) cycle, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. A cup kept in the Spanish Cathedral of Valencia has been identified since medieval times as the purported Holy Chalice used at the Last Supper.
The Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris has been part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France since 1934.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, also known as the Vulgate Cycle or the Pseudo-Map Cycle, is an early 13th-century French Arthurian literary cycle consisting of interconnected prose episodes of chivalric romance originally written in Old French. The work of unknown authorship, presenting itself as a chronicle of actual events, retells the legend of King Arthur by focusing on the love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, the religious quest for the Holy Grail, and the life of Merlin. The highly influential cycle expands on Robert de Boron's "Little Grail Cycle" and the works of Chrétien de Troyes, previously unrelated to each other, by supplementing them with additional details and side stories, as well as lengthy continuations, while tying the entire narrative together into a coherent single tale. Its alternate titles include Philippe Walter's 21st-century edition Le Livre du Graal.
Sefer Raziel HaMalakh is a grimoire of Practical Kabbalah from the Middle Ages written primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic. Liber Razielis Archangeli, its 13th-century Latin translation produced under Alfonso X of Castile, survives.
Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems.
Corbenic is the name of the Grail castle, the edifice housing the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. It is a magical domain of the Grail keeper, often known as the Fisher King. The castle's descriptions vary greatly in different sources, and it first appears by that name in the Lancelot-Grail cycle where it is also the birthplace of Galahad.
Allusions in rabbinic literature to the Biblical figure Adam, created according to the Book of Genesis by God in the Garden of Eden as the first man, expand and elaborate and draw inferences from what is presented in the text of the Bible itself.
The Legend of the Rood is a complex of medieval tales loosely derived from the Old Testament.
The original historic Knights Templar were a Christian military order, the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, that existed from the 12th to 14th centuries to provide warriors in the Crusades. These men were famous in the high and late Middle Ages, but the Order was disbanded very suddenly by King Philip IV of France, who took action against the Templars in order to avoid repaying his own financial debts. He accused them of heresy, ordered the arrest of all Templars within his realm, put the Order under trial and many of them burned at the stake. The dramatic and rapid end of the Order led to many stories and legends developing about them over the following centuries. The Order and its members increasingly appear in modern fiction, though most of these references portray the medieval organization inaccurately.
The Ordinalia are three medieval mystery plays dating to the late fourteenth century, written primarily in Middle Cornish, with stage directions in Latin. The three plays are Origo Mundi, Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini. The metres of these plays are various arrangements of seven- and four-syllabled lines. Ordinalia means "prompt" or "service book".
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln.
In the Book of Enoch and Book of Jubilees, copies of which were kept by groups including the religious community of Qumran that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Elioud are the antediluvian children of the Nephilim, and are considered a part-angel hybrid race of their own. Like the Nephilim, the Elioud are exceptional in both ability and wickedness.
Segurant, the Knight of the Dragon is a medieval Arthurian romance written in French during the 13th century. As no complete manuscript has survived, the novel had been largely forgotten until its rediscovery by paleographer Emanuele Arioli.